Tuesday, July 12, 2005

'Israel will eventually disappear'

How many times have I heard the argument that giving back land is not the answer to peace with the Palestinians. That the Palestinians do not want peace with Israel. That they will not be content until every last Jew is pushed out of the Land of Israel and into the Sea. As Bibi Netanyahu said on CBS's 60 Minutes in 2001 "it seems that the Palestinians don't want peace next to Israel or even a piece of Israel; they want all of Israel." It still hurts to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. From Ynet:

Hamas will not compromise on one inch of Greater Palestine, Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar told an Italian newspaper earlier this week. Speaking to the Corriere Della Sera newspaper, al-Zahar said Hamas would "definitely not" be prepared for coexistence with Israel should the IDF retreat to its 1967 borders."It can be a temporary solution, for a maximum of 5 to 10 years. But in the end Palestine must return to become Muslim, and in the long term Israel will disappear from the face of the earth...We won't disrupt the Israeli withdrawal, let them get out of here and go to hell," he said. "The problem will be afterwards, because in the hearts of every Palestinian, the liberation of Gaza must be accompanied by the liberation of Jerusalem and the West Bank."

Lovely. Just in case you were wondering, of course. Follow the link for more choice tidbits from this very personable fellow.

This is not news. Extemist Israelis would espouse similar intentions regarding all Arabs west of the Jordan: expulsion, perhaps even genocide, at most (from the Palestinian POV) permanent Class B (i.e., nonvoting) citizenship in a Greater Israel.

If you find the above results unacceptable (as I do) then the only option is a "two-state solution" or something like it. Obviously this approach yielded little in the 1990's, when the parties were trying to negotiate towards it. It now appears that Sharon is trying to impose a version of it on the Palestinians, via withdrawal from Gaza and completion of the security fence. If those are implemented relatively calmly, the next step would be for Israel to abandon Jewish communities outside the fence. If there is no calm, then the new status quo would continue, with 10K fewer Jews on the "other side."